Baron Cohen - Autism In Adults

Question 1

Aim 1

Answer 1

To develop an advanced test for theory of mind in adults with Autism

Question 2

Aim 2

Answer 2

To investigate why adults with autistic spectrum disorders have problems with social relationships

Question 3

Research method and design

Answer 3

Quasi experiment using matched pairs design / independent measures design

Question 4

Sampling numbers

Answer 4

50 normal, 16 Autistic and 10 Tourette’s syndrome

Question 5

Sampling method

Answer 5

Volunteer sample - recruited through an advert

Question 6

Independent variable

Answer 6

If the participant was normal, autistic or had Tourette’s

Question 7

Dependent variable

Answer 7

How well they performed on the eye task

Question 8

How many photos of eyes were shown and for how long?

Answer 8

25 photos for 3 seconds each

Question 9

In what form did they give their answers?

Answer 9

Choosing one of the two forced choice answers which were the opposites of each other

Question 10

How were the foils and target words generated?

Answer 10

Using 8 adults to construct them and they agreed on them 100%

Question 11

Why was the Happes Strange Stories used?

Answer 11

To validate the eye task as a theory of mind task- if the eye task truly measured the theory of mind, the performance between these two tasks would correlate

Question 12

What was found in the Strange Stories tasks?

Answer 12

People with autism spectrum disorder struggles but the normal and Tourette’s group didn’t

Question 13

Why was the basic emotion recognition task used?

Answer 13

Control: To make sure all the groups didn’t have visual impairments that meant they couldn’t process the photos

Question 14

Findings from the basic emotion recognition task?

Answer 14

All groups performed normally

Question 15

Why was the gender recognition task used?

Answer 15

Control: To eliminate the possibility that the autistic group had no visual impairments that disabled them to process the photos

Question 16

What was found in the gender recognition task?

Answer 16

All groups performed normally

Question 17

Why was the Eye task used?

Answer 17

To make another test that measured theory of mind, but this time in adults because the Sally Anne test was designed for children, not reflecting adultery abilities

Question 18

What was found in the eye task?

Answer 18

Participants with Autism performed the worse out of the three groups, proving that autistic people find it hard to recognise the mental state of others

Question 19

Conclusion 1

Answer 19

Even high functioning adults with autism struggle with the theory of mind

Question 20

Conclusion 2

Answer 20

It supports that theory of mind deficit is central to understanding autism and the people it’s affected

Question 21

Conclusion 3

Answer 21

It’s a cold test for theory of mind because the results in the eye task correlated with the ones from Happes Strange Stories